Wednesday, July 19, 2017

The Legend Begins




DRACULA-1931-Every horror fan knows this was the first sound horror film and despite its flaws it ushered in the “golden age” of monsters and vampires. Universal followed it with their adaptation of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and at night a special Spanish language version was filmed using many of the same sets. Some claim it's better than the famous Tod Browning version but Carlos Villarias in the lead is no Lugosi. Here are some quotes:

“I dislike mirrors”.

“For one who has not even lived a single lifetime you are a wise man, Van Helsing”.

“The Strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him”.

“Isn't this a strange conversation for men who aren't crazy?”.

“I am Dracula”.

“I bid you welcome”.

“Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make”.

“The Spider spinning his web for the unwary fly. The blood is the life, Mr. Renfield”.

“I never drink... wine”.

“Your will is strong Van Helsing”.

Rats,rats rats! Thousands, millions of them. All red blood. All these will I give you”.


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Monday, July 17, 2017

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

A Hot Bed of Low Budget Actors!


A BULLET FOR PRETTY BOY-1970-Low budget maven Larry Buchanan's supposed true story of the infamous outlaw (also immortalized in a Woody Guthrie song). 

At his wedding Charles Floyd (one time Elvis wannabe Fabian) beats up party crasher Jack, also the former beau of Charles' wife Ruby (Astrid Warner; HELLES BELLES). When Jack tries to shoot Charles he kills Mr. Floyd by accident. Later when Jack attacks Charles with an ax, Charles kills him. A newspaper headline tells us that Charles received a 6 year sentence on a work farm. 4 years later, Charles (not looking the worst for wear) decides to escape with lifer Huddy (Buchanan regular Bill Thurman) who gets shot and stays behind (and is killed off-screen) while Charles gets away. He's taken in by Beryl (Anne MacAdams, another Buchanan regular; later in DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT), a madame and her two sons Wallace (Jeff Alexander) and William (Gene Ross; also in DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT) and two hookers Helen (Carmilla Carr; also in DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT) and Betty (Joslyn Lane, a former model, also in HELL'S BELLES in her last role) who has weird sex scene in a bathtub with Charles. Bo and Harvey, two eastern gangsters join Charles to rob a bank. 

After a few more robberies he's caught but when the train he's on goes through his hometown he kills the escorting sheriff and escapes. Later he's joined by his friend Preacher (Adam Roarke; guess what? Also in HELL'S BELLES) but Beryl's brothers try to kill him. He machine guns them instead. More robberies follow(with Betty and Helen helping out) and a new guy named Ned (Michael Haynes) joins them.. Somehow they escape a police ambush but Ned is killed and Helen is arrested. 

This low budget crime drama is pretty slow going despite some shootouts, idolizing Floyd yet depicting him as a ruthless killer. Filmed in Texas by conspiracy king Buchanan and scripted (from a story by Buchanan and actor Tony Huston) by Henry Rosenbaum who wrote the film version of THE DUNWICH HORROR for AIP the same year. He later wrote the Gene Wilder vehicle team-up HANkY PANKY. Buchanan also made STRAWBERRIES NEED RAIN the same year. 

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Monday, July 10, 2017

Mr. Wong



THE MYSTERIOUS MR. WONG-1938-Famous Asian American detective James Lee Wong (the very un-Asian Boris Karloff) investigates the murder of  industrialist Simon Dayton (John Hamilton) even though the cause of death seems to be natural causes. The big mouthed  Capt. Street (Grant Withers) works with Wong but usually disagrees with him. Later another partner Wilk (Hooper Atchley) is killed alone in a locked room. The only clue seems to be shards of shattered glass. Their chief suspect is Karl Romer (John St. Polis), a guy who says he was cheated out of a stake in the trios' company. The third partner Meisle (William Gould) seems like a good lead but then he's killed the same way. And then there's the mysterious Countess (Evelyn Brent) and her friend The Baron. A nosy reporter Bobby Logan (Marjorie Reynolds) manages to get in Wong's way several times. There's not much action in this first in a series of 5 quickly made Monogram mysteries (the first 4 directed by William Nigh who apparently didn't mess around) but Karloff is fun to watch and the manner in which the victims are killed is a doozy!

The Wong character was created by Hugh Wiley and was popular in its time (there were even some comic books). In the stories (a dozen or so from 1934-1941 in Collier's) Wong was a agent for the US treasury but in the films he's a regular private eye. Withers and Reynolds would reprise there roles in the sequels.

Big note: Some of my Mr. Wong info came from http://www.thrillingdetective.com/index.html

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Scream And Scream Again (but not for a sequel)


SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN-1970-A guy jogging during the credits collapses after the director's name is shown. In a hospital bed he seems very confused. He's even more shocked to discover one of his legs is missing. Then a spy named Konradz (Marshall Jones) kills his boss with what resembles the Vulcan nerve pinch. Another scene change and Bellaver (Alfred Marks), a snotty uptight police superintendent visits Dr. Browning (Vincent Price) about the murder of his female assistant. Back at the hospital (?), the jogger finds his other leg is now missing. At a disco, Keith (Michael Gothard) meets a young woman (Judy Huxtable,credited as guest star) who he winds up beating, then killing. Meanwhile in some military dictatorship Konradz kills his superior (Peter Cushing) after being reprimanded for torturing a girl.






Back to the jogger who is now missing both his arms. Then we are introduced to Fremont (Christopher Lee), head of some British intelligence department who seems to know what's going on. The police catch Keith sucking blood from a woman's wrist and he knocks them all around and escapes. The police follow and trap him on a mountain which he falls off of but isn't killed. They handcuff him to a car fender but he cuts off his own hand to escape. He goes to Dr. Browning's practice and jumps into a vat of acid. Upon examining the left behind severed hand the coroner Dr. Sorel (Christopher Matthews) comes to the conclusion that it's artificial. At night a nurse steals the hand. While this is going on Fremont seems to be trying to negotiate a plan to get back a captured spy plane pilot. Bellaver is killed by a phony police psychologist. When Sorel's girlfriend (Judy Bloom) is kidnapped, he investigates Browning's complex and finds his lab packed with lots of frozen severed limbs. Browning is making artificial humans (called “composites”). Sorel seems to accept it all until he sees his girlfriend on the operating table. Browning (who it's revealed is also a composite) and Konradz have a showdown. Somehow Browning escapes Konradz's death grip and throws him in the vat of acid. Fremont shows up and makes Browning take an acid bath too then speaks ominously “It's only the beginning”. Apparently Fremont knew everything that was going on and perhaps was setting up a sequel? Maybe not. 




SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN is so disjointed with lack of any coherent plot or even a central character it almost seems like two (or three) separate story lines spun together. Also this was touted as the first screen teaming of Price, Lee and Cushing when in fact except for a few minutes in the finale where Lee and Price finally meet none of them have any scenes together! This meeting was similar to they confrontation in THE OBLONG BOX which was made the year before by SASA's director, the German born Gordon Hessler, a kind of journeyman filmmaker going through a "making Hammer like horror films for AIP" phase, although SCREAM  was produced by Hammer's chief rival at the time Amicus. Hessler would make THE CRY OF THE BANSHEE (also with Price) and a remake of THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. Later he would do a lot of American TV. The Amen Corner (with Andy Fairweather-Low) do a song. 

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Thursday, July 6, 2017

Intermission


The Marx Brothers and Irving Thalberg!

The Terror....The Terror....

THE TERROR-1963-Andre Duvalle (Jack Nicholson),a French soldier lost on a beach meets the wistful Helene (Sandra Knight) who gives him water then runs with him along the shore. She walks into the ocean and Andre nearly drowns trying to rescue her (he's also attacked by a black bird). An old woman named Katrina (Dorothy Neuman) takes him in after he's saved her mute servant Gustav (Jonathan Haze). She also has a black bird name Helene. Later Andre follows the bird into the forest and finds the human Helene. They kiss and she power walks away. He follows her and is met by Gustav, who apparently can talk because he tells Andre that Helene is possessed and the only way the soldier can help her is by visiting the castle of Baron Von Leppe. Despite the old woman's warnings he sets out to find the castle and is almost killed by a rock slide. Upon first seeing the castle, she spies Helene at a window. Entering he meets the Baron (Boris Karloff; round of applause) who despite being most hospitable denies that Helene is there. The Baron shows Andre a picture of the Baroness (a dead ringer for Helene) and says she has been dead for 20 years. Andre is invited to stay the night and while in his bed he hears strange noises and a drawing he had made is ripped to shreds. The next day while visiting the Baroness' tomb he is confronted by Stephan (Dick Miller), the Baron's servant. When next they meet The Baron, under a threat from Andre, he relates the story how years before he met and married a village girl who became the Baroness and how he killed her and her lover, Eric. He believes that the girl is the ghost of the Baroness (actually named Ilsa). “Perhaps we are both mad?”.


Stephen discovers the old woman's secret: she summoned Helene/Ilsa from the sea. There's some talk about the mysterious lover, Eric and Stephan wants to kill Andre but the Baron won't allow it. Andre decides to leave but Gustav signals him to stay and has his eyes torn out by the black bird. He falls to his death but manages to speak his last words to Andre: “Go back...”. Back at the castle he meets Helene and they kiss again. At night, Andre follows the Baron into the family crypt. It seems Ilsa wants Van Leppe to flood the castle so they can be together. When Andre meets Katrina in the cemetery she reveals that she is using Helene to drive Van Leppe to suicide because the Baron killed her son, Eric, Llsa's lover. But it turns out Stephen actually killed the Baron and Eric took Van Leppe's place in mind and body! After Katrina is burned up by lightening, Andre and Stephen try to stop Baron Eric from flooding the castle. They tussle in the flood waters. Stephen tries to save the phony Baron but they both drown. Andre saves Helene and takes her away from the castle (“You're free now”). They kiss and she rots away.

For this AIP quickie Roger Corman shot all the principal scenes featuring Karloff in four days then turned it over to second unit directors consisting of Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill and Nicholson. The sets were re-used from Corman's previous Poe film THE RAVEN (with Karloff & Nicholson). The story (scripted by Jack Hill and actor Leo Gordon) is confusing at times and there are several lapses in logic and continuity but at least from a personal standpoint it's an enjoyable little mess. It's funny the way the plot changes several times but Karloff and Nicholson keep it afloat. No pun intended as there is a flood scene.

  THE TERROR fell into the public domain years ago and used to be on TV constantly. It's had three dozen video releases. I've read that years later Corman filmed a new intro with Dick Miller to make the movie seem like a flashback and thus own a copyright version! Not sure if this is true though.

Nicholson and co-star Sandra Knight (still alive at the time of this writing) were married at the time. She appeared earlier in FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER.

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Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Space Rocks


THE MONOLITH MONSTERS-1957-Space rocks fall on a small town and become giant sized when exposed to water. Geologist Dave Miller (Grant Williams; he starred in THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN the same year) tries to figure out why townsfolk are turning into carbon. Naturally Miller's girlfriend Cathy (Lola Albright; mainly a TV actress who died in 2017) takes kids on a rock hunt with disastrous results. Miller and the sheriff (William Flaherty) team up to find a solution and a frustrated newspaper publisher Cochrane (busy radio and character actor Les Tremayne) tries to assist them. A little girl in shock (Linda Scheley) helps them find a cure for the carbon crisis but the monoliths still threaten the town.

 John Sherwood directed this unusual low budget '50's sci-fi film (a year after making THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US) which features no “bug eyed monsters” and a lot of talk about silica. Paul Frees narrates, William Schallert (as a weatherman) and Troy Donahue have un-billed roles.. Co-screenwriter Robert M. Freaco penned TARANTULA in 1955. Jack Arnold has a story credit.

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Saturday, July 1, 2017

X From Japan (not porno)


THE X FROM OUTER SPACE-In Japan, a four person crew: Capt. Sano (Shinya Wazaki), Dr. Shioda (Kensuki Sonoi), Signal officier Miyamoto (Shinichi Yanagawa) and biologist Lisa (Peggy Neal), takeoff for Mars after several other expeditions have disappeared. The ground crew led by Dr. Kato (Eiji Okada) blame UFOs. After the group does encounter a alien craft, the doc falls ill and they have to stop at a moon base where they meet Michiko (Itoko Harada) and Shioda's replacement Dr. Stein (Mike Daneen). They almost crash but return to Earth safely with some spoors that turn into a giant monster (Guilala).The rubbery creature is one of the worst “Kaiju” ever! Sano, Miyamoto, Lisa and Michiko go to the moon in an effort to create a substance that will destroy the out of control, outer space being. This dumb sci-fi space opera , directed and written by Kazui Hihonmatsu, is full of talk, running around and has sugary happy ending.

In his only giant monster movie star Eiji Okada was better known for as the star of Alain Resnais' HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR and Hiroshi Teshigahara's WOMAN IN THE DUNES. He's also in THE UGLY AMERICAN (with Marlon Brando) and the excellent but often overlooked THE FACE OF ANOTHER.

In 2008 a comedy “sequel” THE MONSTER X STRIKES BACK was produced.


Thanks for reading and Happy 4th of July!